Guy Stagg blogs about literature, the relationship between culture and politics and, when all else fails, the zeitgeist.

Why are artists afraid of being middle class?

Why are artists afraid of being middle class? Tracey Emin is so appalled by the idea that she would rather kill herself. She told the final episode of the BBC's 'Who Do You Think You Are: “If I find out that I come from the most loving, simple, ordinary, lovely, suburban family, I think I'll go slit my wrists.”

What a pathetic thing to say. It shows just how pretentious Tracey Emin’s concept of an artist really is. Not to mention betraying all that is most shallow about her own art.

Tracey Emin is saying that art must come from a place of poverty, squalor and trauma. She is an evangelist for the claim that artists should suffer. But this is a lie. In truth, for every Arthur Rimbaud there are many more Philip Larkins – unexciting figures who spend most of their time alone in a room, and only come alive on the page.

What is more, most art is made by the middle classes and for the middle classes. And much of the best art is about the middle classes as well.

When artists pitch themselves as class warriors, they deny this fact. And when it comes to Tracey Emin, this is nothing more than snobbery. Emin is claiming that her bohemian values are better than middle class ones. She is arguing that there is something contemptible about security, simplicity and suburbia.

But surely Tracey Emin is too old and too rich to get away with such adolescent fantasy. Because the only people who fall for that argument are middle class kids. Middle class kids who then try to make up for their comfortable upbringing with entire careers of excess. And in the case of Pete Doherty or Amy Winehouse, spend all their talent on self-destruction.

This adolescence is why Tracey Emin will never be a great artist. It is not that her work is vain, or repetitive, or superficial. It is just immature.

Artists should be outsiders, but that doesn’t include well-healed bohemians taking pot-shots at the bourgeoisie. After all, they're her audience. In the end there is something rather sad about Tracey Emin. She can’t accept the fact that she’s part of the Establishment now.